From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Throughout my career, my vision for the company has not changed – creating an institution. I find this the most challenging task, not just getting in the sales and growing year on year but creating an institution that is considered part of the family by those within it.
Technology should be leveraged to enhance the physical and human experience, not replace it. There is something magical about the physical retail experience that digital will never completely replace.
You absolutely need some funding to get started. But ideally, that should come from remortgaging your house or borrowing a bit from friends, family, or parents—just enough to have a small amount of money, but not too much. That way, you can copy, pivot, test, learn, and prove out your model on a small scale.
In these political times, that's more difficult, you must plant your flag somewhere, and someone will get upset. You have to be able to take that in your stride.
The test for any belief isn't whether it makes you feel good. It's whether it makes you better at engaging with reality. That's not self-help. That's applied science.
I realised that my passion lay in the realm of high performance, irrespective of the context, and the sustainability of such performance was a fascinating query. This question is invariably present in the minds of leaders in great organisations.
When credit in an economy is growing faster than the economy itself, a countercyclical capital buffer kicks in, which essentially says that banks need to have more capital in good times.
There's a disease shared between individuals who consider themselves the smartest people in the room that makes them think they'll be the ones that get out just in time, while others are left holding the bag. That was true for a few people, but in general… someone will always be left holding the bag.
To put it in perspective, every hour spent sitting beyond four hours daily increases mortality risk by 10%. I tackle this with a walking desk, using a treadmill at a low speed throughout my workday.
Nobody will fund innovation in perpetuity – you need to make money; you need to deliver value to your customers. When people ask me whether we want growth or profit, I say yes! Both!
To talk of 'a march of the makers'... I was just looking at a collapse in the numbers of process, plant and machine operatives... The march of the makers has actually been a march of the unemployed-makers!
Human beings have a real tendency to overreact on the upside and the downside. We are not rational investors. I do not believe that people make rational financial decisions! If you study financial decision-making you will find that human beings are irrational in a very predictable manner.